


The Toddler Incident

by astheykissconsume



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Baby Sirius Black, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 17:56:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15846408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astheykissconsume/pseuds/astheykissconsume
Summary: Sirius’s robes lie in a heap on the floor. In the middle of this heap, looking approximately ten seconds away from bursting into a howling tantrum, there is a small black-haired toddler with confused eyes and a dangerously wobbling lip.Or: how Remus Lupin acquired a two-year-old, a gooey-eyed James Potter, and a raging headache.





	The Toddler Incident

It begins, as so many situations do, with one ever-so-slightly mistimed jinx. 

Remus is fairly sure that he wants that to be the opening line of the novel he is bound to write as soon as he leaves Hogwarts. It will be all about the misadventures of James and Sirius, but he will change their names, of course (currently, he’s thinking of going for Jim and Cyrus). The novel will feature Jim and Cyrus’s eager-to-please friend, Pablo Picklegrow, and their other friend, Ruben Looping, who is an entirely normal sort of boy with very normal habits and hobbies (and excellent scores in all his exams). 

He has seen mistimed jinxes cause an all manner of unholy horrors in his six years at Hogwarts. He thinks this one might just be the cherry on top. 

There’s a sly look, a muttered spell, and a wand aimed at Severus Snape’s oblivious back. Snape turns slightly to look at his pile of ingredients, and the jinx sails over his shoulder. It hits the wall at an odd angle, promptly re-bounds, and whacks straight back into Sirius. 

Snape, having felt the rush of air pass him by, whips round suspiciously to glare at Sirius. Except Sirius is no longer there.

James is still there. There is an empty space next to him where Sirius stood just moments ago, and on the other side of that space Peter is gaping at Snape as though he thinks the force of Snape’s glare caused Sirius to vanish. James just looks shocked, and whilst Remus likes to think that he probably looks wise and exasperated, like he expected this to go wrong, he can feel his mouth hanging open. 

Slowly, James looks down. Remus follows his gaze. Hidden from Snape’s view by the table holding their cauldrons, Sirius’s robes lie in a heap on the floor. In the middle of this heap, looking approximately ten seconds away from bursting into a howling tantrum, there is a small black-haired toddler with confused eyes and a dangerously wobbling lip.

“Er,” says James. 

Nobody else says anything for a while. Then Snape cuts in with his usual sneer. “Black actually managed to vanish into the void, never to be seen again? Don’t get my hopes up too much if he’s still there, Potter.” 

For once, James has absolutely nothing to say in response to Snape. He’s too busy staring gormlessly at the child by his feet. 

Remus glances around and realises that it is up to him. Nobody else is going to make the first move. Bloody Gryffindors. 

He steps forward and crouches down until he is on eye-level with the child. He’s wearing a small version of Sirius’s school uniform, minus the robes, and he’s staring at the end of his tie in bewilderment. When Remus’s face appears net to him his eyes snap up and narrow in instant suspicion, but Remus keeps his smile gentle and his voice soft. “Sirius?”

“Sir’us,” the toddler confirms, haughtily. He frowns at Remus with the exact same expression that Remus has seen countless times, on a face about fourteen years older than this one. Remus has to fight the sudden urge to grin hugely. 

“Hi, Sirius,” he said instead. “Um. Do you remember how you got here?”

Sirius slowly shakes his head. He sucks in a small, shaky breath and looks very uncertain. He opens his mouth to say something, then decides he doesn’t want to talk after all. Instead, he lunges for the closest thing to him – James’s leg – and buries his face in the fabric of his robes. 

“Remus,” James says, an edge of panic in his voice, “Remus, he’s sniffing me.”

“He’s hiding.” Remus straightens up, ignoring Snape’s incredulous gaze (still fixed firmly on them, and too jubilant by half). “He’s, er, about two or three, and he doesn’t remember what happened.”

James looks down at the toddler, still resolutely attached to his robes. He tries giving his leg a bit of a shake. Sirius does not budge. He decides upon a new tactic and flicks at the head of tousled black hair at knee-level. “Sirius? Er. Little Sirius… baby Sirius? It’s me. It’s James. Your best friend, remember? You don’t have to hide. Siri - oh, for - you’re dribbling on me now, that’s not cool. Padfoot. Paddy. Pads. Black.”

Sirius finally detaches his face (now complete with a furious flush) from James’s robes. James grins, relieved, apparently not noticing the look on his miniature best friend’s face. It is an expression that has never boded well on any variation of Sirius Black, ever. Sirius sucks up all the air he possibly can into his tiny lungs and issues a bellow which is enough to make James jump half out of his skin, Peter accidentally drop his wand into a bubbling cauldron, and Remus wish, quite sincerely, that he could just go back to bed for today. 

“MY NAME IS SIR’US!” 

The silence that follows this proclamation is deafening. Even Slughorn has stopped bustling about the classroom and is now staring at them with a look of deep concern. 

For Snape, it is painfully apparent that Christmas has come early this year. Remus has never seen him run before, but Snape’s hurried scurry around the table is the closest he’ll probably get. When he catches sight of Sirius, he lets out a loud, delighted laugh. “Well if it isn’t little baby Black!” 

Snape looks deliriously happy. He’s beaming – it’s not an expression one usually associates with Severus Snape, and it’s a little unnerving – but fortunately it is not set to last. Apparently Sirius left his mother’s womb armed with a dynamite temper, because the angry toddler has absolutely no qualms about marching up to Snape and delivering a sharp kick to his shin, right on the bone. 

“Not a baby,” he tells Snape fiercely, even as Snape’s smile vanishes and he grits his teeth in pain, trying and failing to pretend the kick hadn’t hurt. 

The Slytherins are staring at Sirius with undisguised glee and there are definitely some calculated looks thrown in among them. Remus is acutely aware that Sirius is incredibly vulnerable like this, and whilst he doubts anyone would actually physically hurt him, he’s keen to avoid any humiliating situations. So he does the only thing he can think of; he steps forward and scoops Sirius up before he can run off, or burst into tears, or kick Snape again. 

Sirius squirms a little but doesn’t attack Remus for daring to pick him up, so Remus counts it as a win. He’s heavier than Remus expected, but after a bit of awkward manoeuvring he manages to get a good grip on him. Sirius buries his face in Remus’s neck and Remus holds on tight to him, and gives Snape his best ‘back off, I’m a prefect’ glare. 

It doesn’t have all that much impact, but then James steps up beside Remus, wand in hand. “You got anything else to say, Snivelly?” 

Snape opens his mouth, but Slughorn interjects before he can speak. “Oh dear. Well, I suppose it’s not a proper Hogwarts school year until someone goes and de-ages themselves, if it?” He forces a chuckle. “Mr Lupin, take young Mr Black along to Professor McGonagall. I’ll have to brew up the correct potion to get him back to normal but in the meantime I’m sure your Head of House can help.” 

“I’ll go with him,” says James quickly, and when Slughorn looks as though he’s about to protest he adds, “Please, Sir. Remus isn’t used to children but I’ve got, er, cousins. I can help.”

Remus nods and does his best to look incompetent and useless with the child in his arms. He supposes it must work, annoyingly, because Slughorn grudgingly nods and waves them away. 

-

The walk to McGonagall’s office has never felt longer, probably because Sirius really is startlingly heavy for such a small child. Remus shifts him from arm to arm with a grunt of discomfort and mutters something disparaging about someone enjoying too many cauldron cakes, only for Sirius to choose that moment to lift his head and fix Remus with as heartbreakingly hopeful a look as he had ever seen. 

“Cake?” he asks.

James laughs, then quickly schools his expression when Sirius’s head turns to follow the noise. “We don’t have any cake, but maybe Professor McGonagall will,” he tells Sirius. “That’s where we’re going. To her office, to tell her about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. About how you’re all – little. You’re not usually like this. You’re normally about – ” James holds his hand up to indicate someone maybe half a head below his own height. Remus raises an eyebrow and James begrudgingly lifts it to above his own ear. 

Sirius furrows his brow at this. “You don’t remember, do you? That’s okay,” Remus assures him. “Everything will be alright.”

“Alright with cake?”

Remus smiles. “Yeah. It’ll be alright and you’ll get cake.”

Sirius seems pleased; he offers them his first (obscenely adorable) smile in return. Then he puts his head back down, cheek pressed against Remus’s shoulder. Remus glances down at the dark hair under his chin and wonders what Sirius does remember. Does he only have memories of the Blacks? Is he used to a constant supply of treats and affection? Remus knows some of Sirius’s homelife, but only since Hogwarts. He doesn’t know how Sirius fared as a young child. Thinking back to the handful of times he’s seen Walburga and Orion Black at Kings Cross, he finds it hard to believe that they would be the type to pick their baby son up for a cuddle, or that they would encourage a nanny to do so. 

Then again, maybe he’s had nannies who just haven’t been able to resist. Remus is trying very hard to approach the situation from a calm perspective, but he’s still human (for a decent percentage of the month). Baby Sirius, with his shock of black hair, pudgy cheeks and huge grey eyes, is so cute that Remus is quite sure his insides are melting right at this moment, turning him into Sirius-induced goo. Remus is going to end his short life as a puddle, and it is going to be all Sirius’s fault. 

James is first through the door when they arrive at McGonagall’s office. “James Potter,” she says before Remus even has the chance to walk in behind him. “What have you done this time?”

Remus steps through the door and McGonagall shoots him a judgemental look, which usually have the power to wither him on the spot. This time, he isn’t really sure how he can explain what has happened. So he just adjusts his grip and holds Sirius up to show him to McGonagall. 

Sirius gives an annoyed little grumble and wriggles in Remus’s grip. It is the only sound anyone makes for ten long seconds, as McGonagall stares at the toddler form of Sirius Black dangling before her and quite possibly contemplates retirement. 

“I haven’t done anything,” James offers, far too late. 

McGonagall stands and comes closer. Remus’s arms are aching, so he brings Sirius back to his chest. James holds out his arms to help and Remus dumps Sirius into them with no small amount of relief.

“Bloody hell, you weren’t exaggerating,” James mutters. He tries to hoist Sirius up to lean on his shoulder, but Sirius is too busy gazing at James with sudden interest.

“Buddy,” he says, thoughtfully.

“Oh, no,” says James.

Sirius begins to smile, displaying several tiny milk teeth. “Buddy hell.” 

“Please don’t,” says James. 

“Buddy hell,” says Sirius with relish. “Buddy hell!” He laughs to himself. “Buddy Sir’us.” 

Remus isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or cry. Glancing at McGonagall, he’s surprised to see that her mouth is twitching. 

“Yes, well,” she says dryly. “If you’ve quite finished teaching Mr Black new items for his vocabulary, I think we had better move onto sorting this out. Am I right in presuming that this was an accident? A spell backfired?” 

Remus nods. “He doesn’t remember anything.” 

“In some ways a blessing,” McGonagall murmurs, watching as James presses a finger to Sirius’s lips, trying to shush him from his repeated ‘buddy’ mumbling. Sirius just tries to gnaw at his finger. “Mr Potter, if you could bring him over here. I can check how far back the spell has taken him, which should help Horace in brewing the re-aging potion.”

James carries Sirius over to McGonagall’s desk and sets him down on it. Sirius abruptly decides he does not want to be there and tries to cling to James’s neck. “Hey, hey,” James whispers. “How about that cauldron cake, hmm? Shall I see what I can do?”

Sirius looks up at him and nods slowly, still a little uncertain. Behind him, McGonagall conjures a small plate of cauldron cakes and passes them to James. Sirius’s face lights up when he sees them. “Cake!” he says happily. 

“Yeah, cake. Here you go, be careful – oh, da – um, oh no…” James busies himself with trying to stop Sirius shoving the cake into his face whole whilst McGonagall waves her wand over the back of Sirius’s head and murmurs something. 

Remus tries to watch McGonagall, but he can’t help but watch James and Sirius instead. Sirius is munching enthusiastically on the cake, crumbs strewn down his miniature uniform. James is fussing over him, trying to dust the crumbs off, which seems to tickle judging by Sirius’s giggles. James grins down at him. “You’re a little menace, aren’t you?”

Sirius grins cheerfully back at him for all the world as if they’re still Padfoot-and-Prongs, Sirius-and-James, business as usual. He holds out his hand for another cake. “More,” he says imperiously. 

“The word is ‘please’,” James tells him, one eyebrow raised.

Before they can get into a battle of wills, McGonagall clears her throat behind them. James gives Sirius another cake just to keep him quiet as he and Remus look to her. “Mr Black has succeeded in de-aging himself by 14 years,” she says. “Which makes him approximately two and a half, I believe.” She glances down at Sirius and seems to struggle with her dignity for a moment before addressing him far more gently than Remus has ever heard her address his teenage counterpart. “Is that right, Sirius? Are you two?” 

Sirius nods his head vigorously. “Two,” he agrees proudly. He holds up two fingers to demonstrate, which just makes it look like he’s telling McGonagall to fuck off. 

McGonagall’s mouth twitches again. “So I see.” She looks back to James and Sirius. “I believe Professor Slughorn’s potion takes approximately 24 hours to brew. On Sunday morning, if you bring him along to my study I will administer the potion. We’ll have our usual Mr Black back soon after. For better or for worse.”

“Sunday?” Remus hopes he doesn’t look as alarmed as he feels. 

“Professor Slughorn will start to prepare the potion as soon as possible, Mr Lupin, but that will not be until this evening. It will need tomorrow to mature. Sunday morning is the most sensible option.”

“You mean… we have to spend all of Saturday with…”

“With Mr Black as a gregarious and demanding toddler? The answer to that is a resounding yes, Mr Potter, as I highly doubt that you will find anybody else who wishes to take that task off your hands. Now if you don’t mind, I have some OWL practice papers to mark.” She looks pointedly at the door. 

Looking a little shell-shocked, James picks Sirius back up and heads for the door. Before Remus leaves, McGonagall adds, “You may take the cakes,” without looking up. 

-

They go back to Gryffindor Tower for lack of any better ideas. James refuses to return to lessons with Sirius and Remus for once finds that he can’t summon any arguments to oppose skipping class. 

They settle Sirius into one of the squashy armchairs by the fire and before long he falls asleep, curled up into a little ball. James gets up and fetches a blanket to cover him. Watching him, Remus feels a twinge of surprise at the gentle care of the action. Then he feels bad about being surprised. James loves Sirius, and Remus knows full well that his super-cool-Quidditch-machine is a carefully constructed façade to win admirers and woo Lily Evans.

“He’s so small,” comments James, shaking Remus out of his thoughts.

“He is. Even for two.” Remus watches as Sirius snuffles at the red and gold blanket draped over him. He glances at James. “I notice he hasn’t asked for his parents.”

James frowns. “Yeah. I reckon if it was me I’d have started wailing for Mum the moment it happened.”

Remus smiles. He’s very fond of Mrs Potter. “She’d have probably sensed it and come hurtling through the window on a broomstick.”

“Let’s hope his mum doesn’t do something similar,” James mutters. He’s had more to do with the Blacks than Remus has – a couple of years ago Sirius’s mother even turned up in the Potter’s fireplace during Christmas dinner to demand that they give her son back. At the time, James had told the tale with gusto and exaggerated enactments of the argument that broke out between Mrs Potter and Mrs Black. Now, though, he’s looking at Sirius’s tiny form curled up in the armchair and looking distinctly troubled. He exhales slowly. “I know that Sirius is actually sixteen, he’s not a baby, and in three days all this will be over, but…”

“It’s hard not to feel protective,” Remus finishes. 

James nods. “Anything that happened to him whilst he was this small happened years ago. But looking at him like this makes me want to march up to Grimmauld Place and… I don’t know, tell them I’m a half-blood and start touching all their cutlery.” 

Remus snorts. “Maybe leave that up to me. Actual half-blood and Dark Creature to boot.”

“I think they’re the Dark Creatures,” mutters James. 

Before long Sirius begins to stir, shifting about in his blanket and rubbing his eyes. He looks a bit confused at his surroundings when he wakes, but seems to recognise them as his current nannies well enough. 

“Hi Sirius,” says Remus. “Did you sleep well?”

Sirius gives a little shrug. He picks at the blanket James had put over him, then focuses on it properly, his eyes wandering over the coloured stripes. “Gryffindor,” he says. He can’t quite pronounce it – it comes out ‘Gwiff-in-or’ – and James and Remus fight smiles. 

“Yeah, Gryffindor!” James encourages. “Where dwell the brave at heart.” 

“Yucky,” says Sirius. 

James blinks, startled. Remus tries not to laugh. “No, no, not yucky… Gryffindor is good!” James tries, valiantly. “Good Gryffindor! Great Gryffindor!” 

Sirius stares at James, decidedly unimpressed. “Yucky,” he repeats. 

“Who told you Gryffindor is yucky, Sirius?” asks Remus. 

“Lessons.” 

This time it’s Remus’s turn to look startled. “You have lessons?” 

Sirius nods. “Sir’us lessons.” 

Remus furrows his brow. “Um… you have lessons on how to be… Sirius?”

Sirius nods again. 

Baffled, Remus glances at James. James is looking intently into Sirius’s little face. “Family lessons, do you mean?” he asks, cautious. “Do you learn about being a Black? About being – the heir?”

It seems like madness, to talk about family history to a two year old. But Sirius nods again, and Remus feels his heart ache for this toddler version of one of his greatest friends. 

“They start them off young,” Remus mutters, sitting back. 

James can’t seem to resist trying again; he leans forward and catches Sirius’s hand in his own. It looks absurdly tiny, smaller than a House Elf’s. “I know you heard that Gryffindor is bad,” he says earnestly, “But you’ll love it one day, I promise. You’re going to get Sorted into Gryffindor when you’re older and you’ll have the best time – we’ll be best friends, and you’ll get a red and gold scarf and you’ll be Keeper on the Quidditch team…”

Abruptly, Sirius bursts into tears. James stops, taken aback. “Um,” he says. 

Remus doesn’t know what to do or say for one long moment. Sirius is a loud crier (naturally) and his little cheeks have gone red with the exertion, tracked with the tears Sirius seems to have squeezed out through sheer force of will.

“Er, Sirius?” Remus says nervously. “What’s – why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t… wanna… be… Giffydor,” he wails, and promptly throws himself face down on the armchair and curls up in a ball. 

James actually raises a hand to his chest as though hearing those words from Sirius’s mouth has physically wounded him. Remus rolls his eyes. James was right when he told Slughorn that Remus has very little experience with small children. What he does have, however, is a lot of experience with Sirius Black. 

“Sirius, I want you to sit up and stop being silly,” he says firmly. “I’m going to count to five. When I reach five, you’re going to have stopped this crying and you’ll be sitting up facing us. One.”

James is staring at Remus. Remus ignores it. “Two.”

Sirius continues to bawl, but slightly quieter.

“Three.”

A touch quieter still. The blanket rustles, and a grey eye peers out at them from the gap. 

“Four.”

A loud, petulant sniffle comes from the Sirius-ball on the armchair. Then he suddenly uncurls himself and sits bolt upright, glaring at Remus but blessedly quiet.

“Five,” says Remus, smiling. “Well done, Sirius.” 

Sirius sniffs again and wipes his eyes on his sleeve, then looks obstinately at the ceiling. 

“I’ve just realised,” says Remus, “that we never actually introduced ourselves. You just, er, crashed our Potions class quite out of the blue. And we know who you are, but you don’t remember us.” 

Sirius is still staring at the ceiling, but with less conviction than before. Remus knows curiosity on Sirius Black when he sees it. 

“I’m Remus,” he says. “I’m one of your best friends. I like to read a lot and you like to tease me about it a lot. We met when we were eleven. I thought you were really cool, and you thought I was a loser but you decided to be my friend anyway.” 

Sirius looks at him properly and seems to take this in. His eyes slide over to James. 

“I’m James,” James says quickly. “I’m also your best – well, I’m sort of your brother. We’re not related… actually, we probably are, but your family’s a bit crap so I don’t tend to claim you as a blood relative, no offence. But you’re definitely my brother. Right now, I’m sixteen, and you live with me. We have the best time.” He smiles at Sirius encouragingly. “We met on the Hogwarts Express and we got on straight away. I was really glad I’d found a friend before we even got to the castle.” 

“I know this is a lot to take in,” says Remus gently. “We’ll be looking after you for the next few days. You can trust us, alright? If there’s anything you want just tell us.”

“We’ll have loads of fun,” predicts James enthusiastically. “I saw Lily looking at you in Potions when you first turned up – she’s the most perfect girl in the world and I’m destined to marry her, by the way. She thinks you’re a bit annoying, as a sixteen year old, but to be fair you can be quite annoying. You swish your hair a lot.” 

The irony of this statement seems to be lost on James. Remus decides not to burst his bubble. 

“Anyway, Lily was smiling at you when we carried you out. I bet she thinks you’re really cute. She’ll think I’m cute because I’m with you.” James beams at Sirius.  
Sirius is paying no attention, because he has noticed the leftover cauldron cakes. Remus intercepts his grabbing hands. “Ah ah. We need to feed you something other than cake, sorry.” 

Before they can make a trip to the kitchens, the rest of Gryffindor house comes piling back into the Common Room. Rumour has flown around the castle about the newly tiny Sirius Black, and Remus dimly wonders if his eardrums are ever going to be the same again after the fifth chorus of shrieks, coos and squeals.  
Sirius, he notices, seems to be lapping up the attention. He sits happily through all the cheek-pinching and forehead-kissing and smiles angelically up at everyone who descends upon him. James has elected to carry him so as to soak up as much of the girls’ attention as he can. The only blessing is that with his arms full of baby Sirius, James has no free hand with which to mess around with his hair. 

When Lily approaches, James actually makes a convulsive twitch as though he longs to run a hand through his hair. He nearly pitches Sirius over his shoulder as a result, and Lily reaches out to steady him. James tries to think up a witty comment and fails, instead just staring at her with a dumb, lovelorn expression. Fortunately, Lily is too busy looking at Sirius to notice; she’s smiling down at him, running one of his black curls round her finger. 

“Do you have to return to normal? I think I much prefer this new improved Sirius Black,” she teases.

Sirius smiles shyly, then – to James’s obvious outrage – reaches towards Lily. 

“You want me to take you?” she asks. She looks at James now, uncertain. 

“His lordship gets what he wants,” James says, going for ‘jokey’ and landing on ‘insulted’. Lily seems to assume it’s a faux-outrage, though, and actually grins at James which cheers him up no end. She takes Sirius from him. Watching them, Remus can sense James’s delight at the easy friendliness of the interaction, which on a James-and-Lily scale is definitely near the top of the list. He smiles a bit to himself. They tease James, but his feelings for Lily really do seem quite sincere. 

Peter returns in the midst of all the cooing, clutching Sirius’s wand, which he’d rescued from the Potions classroom floor. He’s grumpy at what he clearly perceives to have been thoughtless abandonment by his friends, and he’s trying hard to ignore Sirius’s obvious charms. Remus takes pity on him and asks him to accompany him to the kitchens whilst James is busy with Sirius. Peter’s mood improves almost instantly, because Peter likes nothing better than visiting the kitchens.

They return laden with food for themselves and Sirius; Remus knows they’ll have to brave it over the weekend, but he really can’t bring himself to face the idea of eating in the Great Hall tonight. He wasn’t sure what to ask the House Elves for to feed a toddler, but he thinks they’ll be alright; they’ve given him some sandwiches and fruit, and promised to help if Sirius proves to be a fussy eater. Peter eats a couple of the sandwiches on the way back to the Tower.

Eventually they manage to extract James and Sirius and head up to their room. Sirius is tired again from all the attention, but perks up when Remus offers him food. He eats his cheese sandwiches quite happily and eyes the banana with mild suspicion, but eat that too when he sees James take a bite. Then he settles down for a nap on James’s bed. 

“I suppose he is quite cute,” says Peter reluctantly, watching him. 

“Quite cute? Wormtail, I’m dying over here. I’ve developed paternal feelings for my best friend in a matter of hours. I’m going to mother him when he gets back. I’m going to treat him like I’m a mother duck and he’s my duckling,” James says, with feeling. 

“I’m quite excited to see that,” comments Remus.

“Ten Sickles he punches Prongs before the end of his first day back,” Peter says, hopefully. 

Remus shakes his head. “That’s not a bet, that’s an inevitability.”

“I can’t help it,” sighs James. “Look at him. He’s so little. It hurts my heart.”

They all stare at Sirius’s sleeping form for few seconds more. 

“This is weird,” says Peter eventually.

James and Remus agree, and they hastily busy themselves elsewhere. 

-

On Saturday Remus wakes having totally forgotten the events of the day before. When he sits up in bed to find a tiny, fluffy-haired Sirius Black sitting on his feet at the bottom of his bed and bouncing up and down, he gapes at the child for so long that Sirius stops bouncing and says, “Mus?” very uncertainly. 

Remus continues to gape. “That’s you,” James said from beyond his curtains, sounding rather croaky, as though he’s already been awake for a long time. “Mus.”

“I’m Mus?”

“He can’t say Remus. So you’re Mus. I’m Jam.” 

“Oh.” Remus’s morning brain is too fuddled to make much sense of this, so he settles for giving Sirius a cursory pat on the head before heading off to have a wash.  
When he comes back, Sirius has taken to bouncing on Peter’s feet instead. There’s no way Peter is still asleep, but he’s remaining obstinately in bed regardless. Eventually, he growls, “It’s… a… Saturday,” and rolls over onto his face. Remus wonders if he plans to suffocate himself. 

James picks Sirius up off the bed and deposits him on the floor. Remus notices that Sirius is wearing a new outfit and silently thanks any and all gods for the thoughtfulness of House Elves. “Let sleeping Wormtails lie,” James advises.

“Wormy wormy wormy wormy wormy,” chants Sirius. 

“I said he’s to call me Peter,” says Peter, voice muffled by his pillow. 

“WORMY!”

James hurriedly shoos Sirius out of the door. Remus follows. They walk down to the Great Hall together, Sirius running a little ahead but always coming back. It’s fairly quiet because it’s early, which is a blessing. 

They sit Sirius down between them on the Gryffindor bench. Remus butters some toast for him and spreads jam on it too – teenage Sirius has a formidable sweet tooth, and if his mini counterpart’s obsession with cauldron cakes is anything to go by, that sweet tooth is already here in his two-year-old self. Sirius happily chomps at the toast, getting jam all over his face in the process. James is eating scrambled eggs beside him like a zombie. Remus considers asking him how long he has been up with Sirius and decides he doesn’t really want to know. 

Remus is in the middle of pouring some juice for Sirius when somebody sits down at the bench opposite. He looks up, expecting Peter, but finds Regulus Black of all people. He looks strange out of his Slytherin uniform. He’s staring at Sirius with open fascination and something else, carefully guarded in his eyes. “So it’s true. My brother has managed to actually turn himself into the child he acts like,” he comments.

“Piss off, Regulus,” James says, sounding bored. Sirius looks up sharply at the name. “He’ll be back to normal in a couple of days. It happens a lot, I’m told.”

“At ease, Potter. I only came to see for myself. Slytherins do love to gossip, particularly when the subject is my dear brother.” 

“Reg’us?” asks Sirius.

Regulus blinks. He glances at Remus. “Does he - ?”

“He has no memory of Hogwarts. Only the first two years and a half of his life, presumably.”

“So he knows me. He was just over one when I was born.”

“He knows you as a bald wrinkly baby, yeah,” James mutters. 

Regulus ignores him, leaning in closer to examine his toddler brother. It’s a little like looking at a strange mirror: this Sirius looks like he could grow up to be the fifteen year old gazing at him. “It’s been a long time since I saw you like this, brother.”

Sirius frowns at him, then says, softly, “Where’s mama?” 

Regulus’s expression shutters up. “You know you’re not supposed to call her that,” he tells Sirius.

Sirius’s lip wobbles. “Mama…” 

“Our nanny,” Regulus translates for James and Remus’s benefit, without looking away from Sirius. “She looked after us until I was about five, I believe. She was fired for getting too attached. He was devastated.”

James passes Sirius another piece of toast to distract him. “Don’t set him off,” he tells Regulus, steel in his tone. “Or else you can be the one who deals with the consequences.”  
Regulus shrugs. “I have no desire to mop up my brother’s tears, believe me.” He slides backwards off the bench and walks back to the Slytherin table. 

There are more people piling into the Great Hall, so James grabs some toast for Peter and Remus grabs Sirius’s hand, and they head back up to Gryffindor Tower. By the time they arrive, Peter has stirred enough to gratefully pick up the jammy toast James has thrown at the back of his head, pick off the fluff from where it fell onto the floor, and eat it. 

They quickly decide that it’s a lot easier for them if they can occupy Sirius within the confines of Gryffindor Tower as much as possible. The thought of being in charge of a small Sirius Black outside makes him break out in a cold sweat. Who knows what kind of horrors Sirius might get up to with the great outdoors at his tiny fingertips?

James and Peter are currently distracting him with some gobstones – they’re not actually playing the game, but Sirius seems quite content to bash them around on the floor. As Remus watches, one of the gobstones rolls away. Before Peter can snag it and fetch it back, Sirius holds out an imperious hand and the stone shoots back across the floor and into his grip, where he resumes playing with it as though nothing had happened.

“That was… impressive,” says Remus.

“That was way more control than I had with magic when I was two,” says Peter.

“That’s more control with magic than you have now,” says James. 

Peter shoots James a sulky look, but Remus takes no notice of them. A thought has occurred to him, and he can’t tell whether it’s absolutely brilliant or absolutely terrible. “Sirius,” he says, faux-casual, “do you know any spells?”

Sirius looks up at him and shakes his head. 

Remus looks at the gobstone in his hand. “How did you make that move?”

“Wanted it,” comes the reply, which is fair enough but also so intensely Sirius that James hides a snort behind a laugh. 

Remus takes another of the gobstones and puts it up on the nearest bed. “Can you make this one come to you too?”

Sirius looks at the gobstone, holds out his hand, and within a moment it’s tucked in his little fist. A theory is forming in Remus’s mind. “Can you do anything else?” he asks. Sirius nods. “Can you… okay, try something on us? Show us what you can do.”

Sirius looks at Peter. He screws up his face in concentration, and then Peter lets out a howl and clamps his hands over his face, stumbling to his feet and into the bathroom. A couple of green blobs manage to fly out of his nose and escape through his fingers, spinning in the air around his head. Peter slams the bathroom door shut. Sirius is chortling away to himself in the meantime, evidently delighted. 

James watches him go, open-mouthed, then looks at Remus. “I think you maybe should’ve anticipated that one, mate.”

“I should’ve, yes,” says Remus weakly. “You do realise what this means?”

“Sirius learnt the Bat-Bogey Hex at an incredibly young age?”

“No, I think… I think this Sirius has got our Sirius’s magic. He’s got the body and mind of a two-year-old, but the magic of a sixteen-year-old. I think he can do anything our Sirius could do. Without a wand, too.”

They both turn to look at the still-giggling toddler, sitting innocently on the floor surrounded by his gobstones. He smiles sunnily back at them.  
Remus’s mind is spinning through the possibilities – is it a defence thing, because this Sirius is so vulnerable? Has he retained his magical abilities as a natural protection, without the need to hold a wand or know spells his young mouth probably couldn’t formulate? James’s thoughts, meanwhile, have taken a very different direction. He picks up his own wand and draws the shape of an animal in the air in thin white lines. The image hovers in the air for a minute before vanishing. 

“Do you know what that was?” asks James.

Sirius nods.

“Do you think, if you concentrated very hard, you might be able to… turn into that?”

Sirius considers this. He closes his eyes and furrows his brow ever so slightly.

And then he abruptly transforms into a dog. 

“Oh god,” says Remus.

Padfoot yawns and scratches behind one of his ears. Except this isn’t the Padfoot they know – the huge dog is nowhere to be seen. Instead an impossibly fluffy black puppy sits before them. He’s about the size of a terrier, which is nothing compared to his usual stature, and his muzzle still has a babyish roundness to it. He finishes scratching and then lets his tongue loll out, regarding them with a grin that borders on manic. Remus can spot rows of very white teeth which aren’t as big as their Padfoot’s, but look much sharper.

James grins back at him. “Hey, Pads.” 

“Don’t turn into Prongs,” says Remus quickly.

James rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to. The bed curtains always get stuck in my antlers.” He scoots forward and strokes Padfoot’s head, smoothing his ears down. Padfoot enjoys the petting for a few seconds, then decides he’s had enough. He turns his head suddenly and nips James on the wrist, ignoring his startled, “Hey!” He gets up and begins to wander about the room, sniffing at each bed with great interest. He walks like he isn’t particularly steady on his paws (which, Remus notices, are enormous). 

He stops by Remus’s bed and lifts his leg. Remus realises too late what he’s about to do and has to put up with James’s sniggering as he yells, “OI!” and tries to push the puppy away from his bed. Padfoot still manages to pee on his bedpost and Remus gets some on his hands too for his trouble. The puppy thinks this is some sort of hilarious game and yips with glee, pouncing and leaping about, sending gobstones flying everywhere and tripping James up as he darts between his legs. 

Peter, hearing the excited barks, opens the bathroom door hurriedly. “That better not be what I think it is.”

“Oh, it is,” says Remus grimly. Padfoot has now seized James’s trouser leg in his mouth and is dragging at it, hunching up his little shoulders to try and haul James across the floor. 

“Help me, you useless toads,” cries James, clinging to his bedpost. 

“I have pee on my hands!” wails Remus. 

“Oh, for – ” Peter marches over, bends down, and picks Padfoot up. Padfoot squirms in his grasp and tries to nip his hands, but Peter holds him at arm’s length, giant paws dangling. “Bad dog,” Peter says, very seriously.

Padfoot wags his tail. 

“Who was the genius who thought it would be a good idea to encourage a toddler to turn into his Animagus form?” mutters Peter.

“I have paid the price for my foolishness,” says James sombrely, inspecting his trouser leg. 

Remus goes to wash his hands and cleans up the little puddle by his bed. “I really, really hope we can get him to turn back,” he says nervously when he returns. Peter has sat down on his bed with Padfoot on his knee, stroking him to keep him settled. 

“I can’t believe I actually want baby Sirius back, but I agree,” says Peter. 

James kneels down on the floor in front of Peter’s bed and looks at the puppy. Padfoot edges closer to him, snuffling at him and giving his cheek a lick. James smiles, unable to help himself, and scratches Padfoot behind the ears in the way his older counterpart loves. Padfoot closes his eyes in enjoyment.

“Pads,” James says gently. “And Sirius, ‘cause I know you’re in there. Do you think you could turn back for us?”

Nothing happens. The puppy settles down for a nap on Peter’s knee. James tries not to look worried. Peter does look worried. Remus is just starting to work himself into silent horror at what will happen if it gets discovered that his friends are Animagi, when Sirius apparently gets bored of being a dog, and turns back into a human. 

Sirius smiles at James. “Jam.” 

“You scared us, you little – uh, creature.” James lifts Sirius up off Peter’s lap, to the visible relief of Peter, and plonks him down on his own bed instead. “Let’s keep that as a secret between us, okay? Nobody else can know that you can turn into a dog… or it won’t be our secret.” He puts a finger to his lips. Sirius nods. 

“I wonder how Slughorn’s getting on with that potion,” Peter says, not casually at all. 

“You do realise that as soon as we get normal-sized Sirius back, you’ll miss this version of him? He’ll be straight back to putting you in a headlock and eating all your Chocolate Frogs and you’ll wish you could just pick him up and dump him on me or James.” 

“That’s probably true,” says Peter thoughtfully. 

James decides before long that he really must make the most of his opportunity to milk caring-friend-with-adorable-child and takes Sirius down to the common room. Remus takes the opportunity to read some of his book, and he manages to get a good few chapters in before the peace is shattered with the return of a red-faced James and a petulant-looking Sirius. 

Peter watches as James guides Sirius to sit back on his own bed and gives him a cauldron cake to keep him occupied. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing,” says James. There is a vein pulsing in his forehead and he looks like someone who has just faced down a Dementor. “Except, you know, Sirius asking Lily what her blood status is.”

“He’s only two, how the hell did he manage to ask that?” Remus demands.

“Well to begin with it just sounded sweet, a kid babbling nonsense, you know, nobody really knew what he meant when he started asking ‘what bud?’ But then he started to tap on his own chest and said ‘Pure’ very clearly, so that kind of put his questions about ‘bud’ into more context.”

“I know it’s not funny,” says Peter, who sounds like he’s trying very hard not to laugh, “but it kind of is.”

“And Lily was obviously a bit unnerved that he would even ask her that, but then he said ‘yucky’ when she said her parents were Muggles, so, y’know. Nobody thinks he’s cute anymore.”

Peter’s shoulders are shaking suspiciously.

“I’m sure she knows it’s not your fault,” Remus soothes.

James throws himself on the bed and stares up at the canopy above with a deep sigh. “It was going so well before that as well,” he says mournfully. “Lily actually complimented me. She said I was good with him.” He pauses, then adds with great determination, “Just like I’ll be good with our children.”

“Er, yes. Anyway. Cheer up, it’ll soon be Sunday morning,” Remus says with optimism he does not particularly feel.

-

But Sunday morning arrives soon enough. Remus is not lucky enough to escape with another full night of sleep and spends a fair amount of time in the early hours making shadows on the wall just to make Sirius giggle. He’s exhausted, but he finds he doesn’t particularly mind. He knows that before long this little version of Sirius will be gone, and, well. He’s very sweet. He wants their Sirius back, but he knows some part of him will miss this. 

In the morning Sirius insists on walking to McGonagall’s study himself which makes it slow progress. Remus and James each hold one of his hands to support him (and to drag him along, just a little bit). 

“I wish I could capture this moment forever and show it to him whenever he’s a dick to me,” comments Peter, walking behind them. 

McGonagall looks like she’s trying not to laugh when she sees them. Sirius looks like he’s contemplating throwing a tantrum when he’s asked to drink the potion, which honestly, Remus kind of hopes he does, just so that he can enjoy telling teenage Sirius about it later. But Sirius drinks up after James mimes taking a sip and enjoying it. Apparently he can’t resist a challenge even at two. 

It’s bizarre, watching the re-aging process. It’s not unlike watching the Animagus transformation, except the end result is a boy instead of a dog, but it’s like the transformation in slow motion. Remus sees Sirius’s life flash before his eyes, inches of height that took years to grow suddenly shooting up like a weed before him. He catches glimpses of Sirius as he first met him, aged eleven and slightly sullen, Sirius at thirteen, his face slimming and his shoulders broadening, and then finally sixteen-year-old Sirius stands before them, looking dazed. 

“I’m glad he’s not naked,” says Peter.

Sirius glances down. He’s wearing the uniform he had on when the spell first backfired. “You should be so lucky, Wormtail,” is his first comment. 

“So it begins,” Peter sighs.

“Welcome back, Mr Black,” says Professor McGonagall dryly. She points at the door. “Now out with the lot of you.”

They troop out of the door. The moment McGonagall’s door closes behind them, Sirius stops and looks at them all. Trepidation is not an expression that Remus is used to seeing on Sirius’s face. It’s annoying how attractive he makes it look.

“What did I do?” he asks. 

“You bit me and you peed on Remus’s bed,” says James.

“The pee got on my hand,” says Remus. “It was horrible.”

“And you did the Bat-Bogey Hex on me,” says Peter. “Aged two. You monster.”

Sirius stops looking embarrassed and starts looking delighted. “Did I?”

“Don’t look too thrilled. You also went round asking what people’s blood status is and said ‘yuck’ when anyone was related to a Muggle,” says James darkly. 

Sirius blinks, then sinks down onto the floor and puts his head in his hands.

“Yeah. I thought that might be your reaction.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed some puppy!Padfoot in my life, you know?


End file.
